


crisper

by orca_mandaeru



Series: nct rarepair hell [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Near Future, Pre-Relationship, Science Experiments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-11 04:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19526269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orca_mandaeru/pseuds/orca_mandaeru
Summary: Jeno never thought he'd enjoy being the assistant to a (mad) scientist so much.





	crisper

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my series of short oneshots for nct ships with under 100 works in the ao3 tag!

Jeno stares down at his feet, where there’s some sort of small creature crawling over the toe of his boot. He bends over and picks it up gingerly, watching to make sure there are no hidden spikes or teeth, holding the little squirming thing up to his eyes. It’s got the face of a kitten, wide yellow eyes and twitching furry ears. Its little pink mouth opens and a long forked tongue flicks out. The lower half is of some sort of lizard, long reptilian tail and scales merging into fur. 

It’s actually really cute, but that’s not the problem. No, it's the fact that this thing was definitely not in the house when he went out- probably didn't even exist in the entire world. And here it is, wandering the mansion unchecked.

Jeno wiggles his finger a few inches away from the kitten-lizard's face, and that forked tongue flicks out again and licks it. Its big eyes are wet and guileless, and Jeno cuddles it close to his chest and heads off to find Chenle.

Jeno thought that this assistant job would be a piece of cake. Jeno knew Doyoung, and Doyoung knew Kun, Chenle's adopted dad, who then learned that Jeno was looking for a summer job. Jeno had met Kun before, he had never met his son. Apparently Chenle was some sort of aspiring scientist, trying to establish himself in the growing world of people taking advantage of the rapidly developing technology. Kun was away travelling for work a lot of the time, and wanted someone around to help "keep the chaos in check," as he had put it. Jeno was up for that.

He was expecting Chenle to be a little kid with a big dream, playing around with cheap microscopes and occasionally setting something on fire. Piece of cake, right? He was certainly not expecting the teenager with the dangerously mischievous smile, surrounded by the veritable jungle of complicated machinery and lab equipment. He had taken one look at Jeno and yanked him into the mess, using him as a shelf for various beakers of suspiciously colored liquids and happily explaining every one.

On the first day Jeno's eyebrows had gotten dyed bright purple. Chenle had leaned against a bench and cackled at him for a full minute before whipping something up to undo the damage.

Jeno had less to do as an assistant than he thought. Even though he was a bit trigger-happy for strange experiments, Chenle was also extremely competent and careful with his equipment. Mostly he was hired for someone to talk to, Jeno thinks. The way Chenle lights up when Jeno gets into theorizing with him even though he doesn't know shit about science is adorable. The light of his smile seems terribly misplaced in the empty, echoing mansion.

And now Jeno's doing damage control again, holding the little kitten-lizard against his chest and peeking in every one of Chenle's various offices and labs. Chenle's been interested in genetic modification recently, rattled off a string of explanations on how he was splicing the DNA or whatever. Right before Jeno left, he was getting frustrated that he couldn't get the organisms to actually live. Seems like he’s solved that problem.

The little creature mewls against his chest, annoyed at the movement of his walking, and Jeno shushes it. The next room he walks into he hits gold. Chenle is crawling under a table, calling softly. When he hears the door open he pops out, eyes focusing on the creature in Jeno's arm. "Oh, you found her!" He reaches out and takes the little creature into his hands, cooing at it and beaming up at Jeno. "I knew I could rely on you, hyung." 

Jeno's breath catches slightly in his throat at the full effect of that smile. He smiles weakly and nods. This job might have some strange risks sometimes, but he wouldn't give it up for the world. Not when he can see this smile every day.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to send ships or prompts on [curiouscat](http://curiouscat.me/orca_mandaeru)  
> or  
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/orca_mandaeru)


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